Note there is a question at the end....
I'm tweeting these days. In fact, you probably started reading this because I tweeted out a link to it. In the process, I'm gathering some followers. And, of course, I'm also losing some because they realize what I want to tweet about is not interesting to them.
More importantly, I trying to determine who I should follow. Because I do this "for work" some choices are obvious. I don't follow the people involved in MLM (multi-level marketing schemes), or have content that is nsfw (not suitable for work). In contrast, I definitely try to follow those who are interested in the same technical areas I am. Then, of course, there is the grey area. Real people who follow me but probably will never have a mutual business or technical interest. I'm of the tendancy to follow them until they prove to be in one of the categories I don't (or can't) follow.
However, at the same time, I'm an introvert (and have a primary job that requires most of my mind most of the time), so it's real hard for me to keep up with all the people I follow, especially on those occassions where I get someone who tweets a lot on my list and they start drowning everyone else out. which is a real shame as it might cause me to miss something from another person who tweeted something that was real interesting that I could respond to or retweet.
So I was wondering, how do I get people who follow me (and would like me to follow them back) to tweet to @intel_chris some message explaining why I should follow them, as in what the connection will be. Do you think asking people to do that will add too much noise to the system?
Do you think I should just DM each person I follow back with that question? Will that seem rude and pretensious?
Monday, July 20, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Not quite a corporate spokesperson
@jowyang Intel has a formal SMP (social media practioner) program that have gone through training and be blessed to blog & tweet. Sounds like corp spokesperson.
I've been through the training and am so "blessed". However, I'm hardly qualified to be a corporate spokesperson. The training was mostly a few common sense items and reinforcing the "code of conduct", where we should not disparage our competition or leak insider information or make claims that can't be shown from public materials. We were also taught to publicly and clearly identify ourselves as Intel employees and the biases that brings. But, that's about it.
We aren't even picked from the marketing, management, or sales arms, although a couple of us (not me) have that background. I'm just an engineer, with some delusions of grandeur.
To be perfectly candid (that's the training kicking in) I do have a nice 2nd title as "Director of Embedded University Programs", because I volunteered to run the annual conference when my previous boss left and had to divy up certain jobs, and I liked introducing all the speakers at our annual conference. However, the title is essentially honorary (it doesn't reflect my day job) and I don't control the budget, although I do get to be the chairperson of the committee that reviews the annual grant program that one of my bosses (2 or 3 levels up) funds.
But back to the point, how did they pick us? They had a brown bag lunch one day talking about this program they were piloting, and asking for volunteers. I've always liked expressing my opinion publicly--my big call to fame is that I posted alot to the comp.compilers newsgroup over the years (and I parleyed that into writing a column for ACM's Sigplan Notices for a year or so--for which I could call myself an editor).
And, what do I write about, nothing particularly Intel related. I'm interested in compilers, regular expressions, automata theory, and because of my day job at Intel, network security. However, because I'm a little cog in a very big wheel, what I know about Intel would be very uninteresting. I do hope that my contribution makes it into a chip someday, but even if and when it does, I work in a niche group solving a niche problem. And, when I do comment on things that are work related, I will be very careful, because the Intel corporate culture which the training reinforces is to not show any bias or favoritism toward any of our partners or clients.
And, BTW, what do I think about network security, since that's my day job at Intel, that the biggest problem is and always will be social engineering, and although I'm working on a technical solution that will help against viruses and things, it won't touch that problem, because we don't know a technical solution to it (and there probably isn't one, at least not before our computers are smarter than we are).
Still, if Intel was training us to be corporate spokespeople then either their training was very subtle or I slept through more of the 30 minute web-based training than I want to admit. ;-) Intel does have spokepeople who can comment on legal and business items, but the new round of us tweeters aren't it. We're just kids given some fun toys and told not to make fools of the company.
I've been through the training and am so "blessed". However, I'm hardly qualified to be a corporate spokesperson. The training was mostly a few common sense items and reinforcing the "code of conduct", where we should not disparage our competition or leak insider information or make claims that can't be shown from public materials. We were also taught to publicly and clearly identify ourselves as Intel employees and the biases that brings. But, that's about it.
We aren't even picked from the marketing, management, or sales arms, although a couple of us (not me) have that background. I'm just an engineer, with some delusions of grandeur.
To be perfectly candid (that's the training kicking in) I do have a nice 2nd title as "Director of Embedded University Programs", because I volunteered to run the annual conference when my previous boss left and had to divy up certain jobs, and I liked introducing all the speakers at our annual conference. However, the title is essentially honorary (it doesn't reflect my day job) and I don't control the budget, although I do get to be the chairperson of the committee that reviews the annual grant program that one of my bosses (2 or 3 levels up) funds.
But back to the point, how did they pick us? They had a brown bag lunch one day talking about this program they were piloting, and asking for volunteers. I've always liked expressing my opinion publicly--my big call to fame is that I posted alot to the comp.compilers newsgroup over the years (and I parleyed that into writing a column for ACM's Sigplan Notices for a year or so--for which I could call myself an editor).
And, what do I write about, nothing particularly Intel related. I'm interested in compilers, regular expressions, automata theory, and because of my day job at Intel, network security. However, because I'm a little cog in a very big wheel, what I know about Intel would be very uninteresting. I do hope that my contribution makes it into a chip someday, but even if and when it does, I work in a niche group solving a niche problem. And, when I do comment on things that are work related, I will be very careful, because the Intel corporate culture which the training reinforces is to not show any bias or favoritism toward any of our partners or clients.
And, BTW, what do I think about network security, since that's my day job at Intel, that the biggest problem is and always will be social engineering, and although I'm working on a technical solution that will help against viruses and things, it won't touch that problem, because we don't know a technical solution to it (and there probably isn't one, at least not before our computers are smarter than we are).
Still, if Intel was training us to be corporate spokespeople then either their training was very subtle or I slept through more of the 30 minute web-based training than I want to admit. ;-) Intel does have spokepeople who can comment on legal and business items, but the new round of us tweeters aren't it. We're just kids given some fun toys and told not to make fools of the company.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
gooseGrade -- crowdsourcing proofreading
You might notice the gooseGrade button on this blog. That allows people to comment on my grammar, my spelling, my punctuation, my facts, my poor parallel construction in this sentence ;-). The idea is to harness the power of the web and the collective crowd to make our writing better. If it improves my blog, that's a good thing. I'm hoping that it does.
More importantly, I hope that in recommending it to you, if you write a blog, that it helps improve your blog too. Just go to http://bit.ly/4fmxQ, register, and then drop the appropriate button on your blog. It's that easy.
Of course, if you know something about writing, I think it will help if you review the pages they put up for checking. That's the other side of the coin. Nothing is completely free. For someone to benefit, someone must contribute. Here is my thanks in advance to those who are contributing. Better writing improves us all. Those who help are truly noble and ennobling.
As a security researcher, I would be remiss in not reminding you that registering and putting a button on your blog that executes code, you are doing something risky. Eventually, especially if gooseGrade gets popular, someone will hack gooseGrade and use it to serve up some form of malware. Now, I'm trusting that it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully, if I do my job properly, we will make doing so harder. Still, it is a risk. If pushing the gooseGrade button on my site or registering for gooseGrade gets you a virus, I apologize for trusting too much, and in doing so giving bad advice. Unforutnately, trusting too much is in my nature.
More importantly, I hope that in recommending it to you, if you write a blog, that it helps improve your blog too. Just go to http://bit.ly/4fmxQ, register, and then drop the appropriate button on your blog. It's that easy.
Of course, if you know something about writing, I think it will help if you review the pages they put up for checking. That's the other side of the coin. Nothing is completely free. For someone to benefit, someone must contribute. Here is my thanks in advance to those who are contributing. Better writing improves us all. Those who help are truly noble and ennobling.
As a security researcher, I would be remiss in not reminding you that registering and putting a button on your blog that executes code, you are doing something risky. Eventually, especially if gooseGrade gets popular, someone will hack gooseGrade and use it to serve up some form of malware. Now, I'm trusting that it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully, if I do my job properly, we will make doing so harder. Still, it is a risk. If pushing the gooseGrade button on my site or registering for gooseGrade gets you a virus, I apologize for trusting too much, and in doing so giving bad advice. Unforutnately, trusting too much is in my nature.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Intel's Embedded and Comms University Program
One of my jobs at Intel is to be the director of the Intel's Embedded and Communications University Program. It's not a big job. I only spend an average of an hour or so per week on it. Most of that time coming in two big bursts: when we run our annual conference and our annual call for proposals. There is a third major activity, the Intel Cup which doesn't require much of our time becuase it has its own team. Still, despite the low amount of effort required on my part, this position gives me some interesting perspective.
The annual conference gives us a good chance to interact with the researchers. We try to balance the agenda so that we have about 50% presentations from Intel employees (to let the researchers know what problems we are working on and would find interesting to have help on) and 50% from the academic community (so that they can present their work and ideas back to us). The face-to-face connections we make at that conference are invaluable.
The call for proposals allows us to hand out money. This reminds me of one of current corporate mottoes: It's not just what we make; it's what we make possible. Many of the grants allow us to seed uses of our chips in ways that have never been attempted. The researchers build lots of things that Intel would and should never build. Giving them money and hardware can make that possible.
Of course, we also give grants for things that we are working on. For example, my area of expertise is regular expressions. There we have handed out several grants to help design optimized hardware to solve that problem. Not only did we get access to that research, it also helped us hire top notch interns. One in particular, Michela Becchi from Washington University in St Louis, has done very good and innovative work that I was proud to sponsor. Hopefully, when she becomes a professor, we will get the opportunity to fund her and her students.
That brings me to what prompted me to write about this, GENI modems and routers. This looks like a very promising coming wave. And, one where Intel clearly is making a mark. Not only are we sponsoring research in that direction, but some of Intel's chips are clear choices for modems and routers at the next level of complexity. The advantage of the ubiquitous Intel architecture also helps build them easier. You can leverage the existing free software community and all that work that has been done for PCs to get added functionality. A win-win situation.
The next area of research that is very interesting is low-power research. The atom processor has made a whole new range of devices that Intel can serve. Moreover, many of them need to run in environments where they need to run on batteries, solar power, or scavenged power. The last area being particularly interesting and difficult. Many of the researchers we are funding in this area are building something that Intel itself will never commercialize, and some of them are combining atom with "motes" very small sensors that are beyond Moore's law for Intel to build today.
At a more commercial level, we also have numerous in-vehicle projects that we have sponsored. If your next car is safer, it may just be because of research we sponsored. If it has a better audio-video system, we may have had a hand in that too.
As a worker in the security field I would be remiss not to mention that we also sponsor work in that area. As Intel drives the world to have 15 billion embedded and connected devices, we need safe networks and secure computers. We have a projects that we sponsor to help make that happen. We also have internal projects. Some of those will make it out the door and result in better and more reliable devices for you. (Unfortunately, some won't too, which is why we can't talk about them. Don't promise something you may never be able to deliver.)
The last thing I want to mention is the Intel Cup. This has been a very successful third-leg of our tripod. It started as a project to fund embedded work in Chinese universities. However, it has grown to a more international competition, with schools around the world participating. Like our research grants, we supply hardware for building an embedded solution, but we don't place undue constraints on what the participants can build. We want innovative new ideas.
I'm sure many of you would like links to follow up on this. I will add them soon. I have to go ask the people who track that stuff what they are, and before that I need to focus on getting what I'm suppose to be innovating on one step closer to in your hands....
The annual conference gives us a good chance to interact with the researchers. We try to balance the agenda so that we have about 50% presentations from Intel employees (to let the researchers know what problems we are working on and would find interesting to have help on) and 50% from the academic community (so that they can present their work and ideas back to us). The face-to-face connections we make at that conference are invaluable.
The call for proposals allows us to hand out money. This reminds me of one of current corporate mottoes: It's not just what we make; it's what we make possible. Many of the grants allow us to seed uses of our chips in ways that have never been attempted. The researchers build lots of things that Intel would and should never build. Giving them money and hardware can make that possible.
Of course, we also give grants for things that we are working on. For example, my area of expertise is regular expressions. There we have handed out several grants to help design optimized hardware to solve that problem. Not only did we get access to that research, it also helped us hire top notch interns. One in particular, Michela Becchi from Washington University in St Louis, has done very good and innovative work that I was proud to sponsor. Hopefully, when she becomes a professor, we will get the opportunity to fund her and her students.
That brings me to what prompted me to write about this, GENI modems and routers. This looks like a very promising coming wave. And, one where Intel clearly is making a mark. Not only are we sponsoring research in that direction, but some of Intel's chips are clear choices for modems and routers at the next level of complexity. The advantage of the ubiquitous Intel architecture also helps build them easier. You can leverage the existing free software community and all that work that has been done for PCs to get added functionality. A win-win situation.
The next area of research that is very interesting is low-power research. The atom processor has made a whole new range of devices that Intel can serve. Moreover, many of them need to run in environments where they need to run on batteries, solar power, or scavenged power. The last area being particularly interesting and difficult. Many of the researchers we are funding in this area are building something that Intel itself will never commercialize, and some of them are combining atom with "motes" very small sensors that are beyond Moore's law for Intel to build today.
At a more commercial level, we also have numerous in-vehicle projects that we have sponsored. If your next car is safer, it may just be because of research we sponsored. If it has a better audio-video system, we may have had a hand in that too.
As a worker in the security field I would be remiss not to mention that we also sponsor work in that area. As Intel drives the world to have 15 billion embedded and connected devices, we need safe networks and secure computers. We have a projects that we sponsor to help make that happen. We also have internal projects. Some of those will make it out the door and result in better and more reliable devices for you. (Unfortunately, some won't too, which is why we can't talk about them. Don't promise something you may never be able to deliver.)
The last thing I want to mention is the Intel Cup. This has been a very successful third-leg of our tripod. It started as a project to fund embedded work in Chinese universities. However, it has grown to a more international competition, with schools around the world participating. Like our research grants, we supply hardware for building an embedded solution, but we don't place undue constraints on what the participants can build. We want innovative new ideas.
I'm sure many of you would like links to follow up on this. I will add them soon. I have to go ask the people who track that stuff what they are, and before that I need to focus on getting what I'm suppose to be innovating on one step closer to in your hands....
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Signal and Noise -- what to tweet
So, like many people creating and following content, the issue of creating signal and not noise is important to me. It requires finesse and subtlety.
As part of my job at Intel, I encouraged to tweet these days, as a form of micro-blogging. For an introvert like me, at first it seemed very unnatural. Reminding me of "winking" that one does on dating sites, which has its places but is hard for carrying on "technical conversations". However, I see that tweets can serve as pointers to longer content and that makes much more sense. Short pointers to longer topics. Note quite the same as bookmarks, since many of these pointers are about timely rather than timeless info. Still, I'm beginning to warm to it. It will take me a while to get the exact level I want.
It doesn't make sense to turn ones twitter account into an unedited newsfeed. If someone wants the latest headlines, there are many places for that. So, as a good twit (I'm sure that not other twitter users call themselves, but it seem right, and I can honor an old friend David Hornbaker with that term.) I will try to be selective in what links I post.
Now, I'm certain other people have thought through these issues and have better formulated the issue and the resolutions than I have (or even than I could). I'm not sure how to find such fonts of wisdom though, and perhaps that is part of this whole revo-evolution. The democraticization of content has made relevant content harder to find. (Relevant quote from some cartoonist in the Iraq-search-for-WMD-days showed two CIA agents sifting through boxes of dots. Caption:
"We haven't been able to connect the dots. Solution, we need more dots.")
Finall, the point I've been heading with all of this. I started a twibe on compilers. That's one of my areas of specialty. It will be interesting to see how many other compiler writers join the twibe (or even tweet at all). One of the things I've been considering tweeting is links to good articles in the newsgroup comp.compilers. It's not like the newsgroup isn't high S/N today. It is. Our moderator John Levine does an excellent job of having just the right light touch. However, I do suspect that there are people who are writing compilers (or compiler like things) that haven't found that newsgroup. If I can help them find that resource and at the same time offer a secondary level of filtering, then that will be good. That brings me back to the point, when I tweet out links to comp.compilers they will be selective links--otherwise I'm just generating noise.
As part of my job at Intel, I encouraged to tweet these days, as a form of micro-blogging. For an introvert like me, at first it seemed very unnatural. Reminding me of "winking" that one does on dating sites, which has its places but is hard for carrying on "technical conversations". However, I see that tweets can serve as pointers to longer content and that makes much more sense. Short pointers to longer topics. Note quite the same as bookmarks, since many of these pointers are about timely rather than timeless info. Still, I'm beginning to warm to it. It will take me a while to get the exact level I want.
It doesn't make sense to turn ones twitter account into an unedited newsfeed. If someone wants the latest headlines, there are many places for that. So, as a good twit (I'm sure that not other twitter users call themselves, but it seem right, and I can honor an old friend David Hornbaker with that term.) I will try to be selective in what links I post.
Now, I'm certain other people have thought through these issues and have better formulated the issue and the resolutions than I have (or even than I could). I'm not sure how to find such fonts of wisdom though, and perhaps that is part of this whole revo-evolution. The democraticization of content has made relevant content harder to find. (Relevant quote from some cartoonist in the Iraq-search-for-WMD-days showed two CIA agents sifting through boxes of dots. Caption:
"We haven't been able to connect the dots. Solution, we need more dots.")
Finall, the point I've been heading with all of this. I started a twibe on compilers. That's one of my areas of specialty. It will be interesting to see how many other compiler writers join the twibe (or even tweet at all). One of the things I've been considering tweeting is links to good articles in the newsgroup comp.compilers. It's not like the newsgroup isn't high S/N today. It is. Our moderator John Levine does an excellent job of having just the right light touch. However, I do suspect that there are people who are writing compilers (or compiler like things) that haven't found that newsgroup. If I can help them find that resource and at the same time offer a secondary level of filtering, then that will be good. That brings me back to the point, when I tweet out links to comp.compilers they will be selective links--otherwise I'm just generating noise.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Chris and Blaze -- about the picture
So, I've tried to use a consistent picture everywhere to identify me. Picking a unique picture to do that wasn't hard--it's the only picture of myself I have--in fact, it is the only picture of any kind I have on my computer. More on that later.
It isn't completely recent, ca. 2000. However, I'm not aging that fast at the moment either. Definitely heavier and a little less thatch on top, but not enough to post a bald picture, yet, 5-10 years maybe before that. Moreover, the point of the picture is to give more of an emotional take on me than a physically accurate one. I think this picture capture some of what I am.
However, to be totally candid and not misleading, I'm not into dogs, well not dogs for me. I'm perfectly happy to be friendly to other people's dogs. The dog in this picture used to belong to my [now ex-]wife(*). She was a very special dog named Blaze. This is probably one of the last shots with her healthy. She died the summer after this picture was taken. Even when this picture was taken, we knew something was wrong with Blazie. And, in that sense this picture is emotionally authentic. This dog was hers, she chose it, etc. However, I did love her though and I treated her lovingly and kindly. That's the aspect of me I'd like to have come out, that I'm generally a nice guy--not perfectly nice, but generally so.
If you catch the other side, that I'm not generally what people think I am and I don't disabuse people of their illusions, well then you're perceptive. That's all part of the package. I think people need to find their own truth. It would be arrogant of me to try to correct people's misimpressions without being asked. Even if asked, I'm simply going to help you understand what you believe and to see any inconsistencies and places where your views seem to run counter to others' perceptions. I don't have any special access to the truth, just my own set of assumptions and experiences.
As I said, this is the only picture I have. I'm not a big fan of pictures. I don't take them. I don't have them. I don't keep them. etc. My wife has a photo album on a flash drive with pictures of me, her, our daughter, our dogs, our travels, our relatives, our friends, our home etc. in various combinations. If you really want a picture of me or us, ask her. There are probably a couple of more pictures I could have that represent memories, but the number is limited. More importantly, there are so many more pictures that don't represent memories and I'm not interested in those. Likewise, the few things in my life that are important to remember I don't need pictures for. Of course, on numerous occassions people have given me cameras, vcrs, etc. I guess that's poetic justice. Hopefully, no one will invent a new must-have camera in the next few years.
From this you probably have me as very unsentimental, which at some level is true. However, I'm not unemotional. One of my favorite movie genres is the romantic comedy, e.g. the Wedding Date, and musical forms is the love song, e.g. 3 Times a Lady. It's just that my emotions are more intangible. I'm more interested in the image that provokes the emotion than the reality.
*) Here you can see my pedantic side, which isn't strong, but is there in the sense that I often try to be precise in what I say, which is actually rather comical and foolish because I have a terrible memory and often mix up facts. The brackets are important. At the time, the picture was taken, Blaze's "Mom" was still my wife, but now she is my ex-wife. That fact may not be important to anyone but me.
Well, if you got this far, thank you. Hopefully, you have a image of the person in the picture. Probably, not yet. Such is life.
It isn't completely recent, ca. 2000. However, I'm not aging that fast at the moment either. Definitely heavier and a little less thatch on top, but not enough to post a bald picture, yet, 5-10 years maybe before that. Moreover, the point of the picture is to give more of an emotional take on me than a physically accurate one. I think this picture capture some of what I am.
However, to be totally candid and not misleading, I'm not into dogs, well not dogs for me. I'm perfectly happy to be friendly to other people's dogs. The dog in this picture used to belong to my [now ex-]wife(*). She was a very special dog named Blaze. This is probably one of the last shots with her healthy. She died the summer after this picture was taken. Even when this picture was taken, we knew something was wrong with Blazie. And, in that sense this picture is emotionally authentic. This dog was hers, she chose it, etc. However, I did love her though and I treated her lovingly and kindly. That's the aspect of me I'd like to have come out, that I'm generally a nice guy--not perfectly nice, but generally so.
If you catch the other side, that I'm not generally what people think I am and I don't disabuse people of their illusions, well then you're perceptive. That's all part of the package. I think people need to find their own truth. It would be arrogant of me to try to correct people's misimpressions without being asked. Even if asked, I'm simply going to help you understand what you believe and to see any inconsistencies and places where your views seem to run counter to others' perceptions. I don't have any special access to the truth, just my own set of assumptions and experiences.
As I said, this is the only picture I have. I'm not a big fan of pictures. I don't take them. I don't have them. I don't keep them. etc. My wife has a photo album on a flash drive with pictures of me, her, our daughter, our dogs, our travels, our relatives, our friends, our home etc. in various combinations. If you really want a picture of me or us, ask her. There are probably a couple of more pictures I could have that represent memories, but the number is limited. More importantly, there are so many more pictures that don't represent memories and I'm not interested in those. Likewise, the few things in my life that are important to remember I don't need pictures for. Of course, on numerous occassions people have given me cameras, vcrs, etc. I guess that's poetic justice. Hopefully, no one will invent a new must-have camera in the next few years.
From this you probably have me as very unsentimental, which at some level is true. However, I'm not unemotional. One of my favorite movie genres is the romantic comedy, e.g. the Wedding Date, and musical forms is the love song, e.g. 3 Times a Lady. It's just that my emotions are more intangible. I'm more interested in the image that provokes the emotion than the reality.
*) Here you can see my pedantic side, which isn't strong, but is there in the sense that I often try to be precise in what I say, which is actually rather comical and foolish because I have a terrible memory and often mix up facts. The brackets are important. At the time, the picture was taken, Blaze's "Mom" was still my wife, but now she is my ex-wife. That fact may not be important to anyone but me.
Well, if you got this far, thank you. Hopefully, you have a image of the person in the picture. Probably, not yet. Such is life.
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